ENTRY INDIA - An India Business & Travel Guide

Exchange Rate and Travel Tips

Comparison of Dollar to Rupee Exchange Rates

The Indian Rupee is the official currency of India.

Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) remitted nearly $70 billion to India last year. But even so, most NRIs wonder if they are using the right service provider for sending money to India. Is it safe to use this service? How long will it take before the money reaches the destination? Am I getting competitive exchange rates? Should I wait for a few days to transfer money to India to get a better rate?

To answer these questions, we have prepared a table of financial institutions that send money to India as shown below. Exchange Rates vary by the transaction amount and the method of transfer. The rates and fee shown to send money to India are for online transfer of under $1000 from USA.

It is clear that the only legal way to transfer your $ earnings from US to India and keep it under your name is via an NRE account. I'm hoping some of you are currently holding an NRE a/c in India. Need your experiences for below points.

What are the options that you take to let a person in india do cash transactions from the NRE account ( as far as I know, technically no bank authorizes a person in India to withdraw from your NRE a/c)?

I think you can transfer INR from your NRE a/c to a savings bank a/c in India. is that correct? If so, can you recommend a bank that has lower service charges for these kind of transfers? Its not wise to lose some INR during exchange and again some INR for transfers b/w NRE and savings a/c in India.

1) If you give GPA (Power of Attroney) to your parents / relatives in india on your NRE account they can do any kind of trasaction on their own.

2) Yes you can transfer from NRE to any other savings account. However you can only deposit to your NRE account by remittance of $ amount or other currency. There is another type of account called NRO where deposits are allowed to. HDFC NRE bank charges minimum for your transfer.

By the way you can deposit directly to the savings account of your relatives by using the above remittance services, however there might be a income tax problem.

I have remitted US$ 1900 on two occasions from Norway to Indian SBI Account(NRE). The bank has deducted US$ 50 on both occasios, besides service and commission charges in Indian rupees. I am not getting clarification from anywhere. Can you please tell me.